Editorial: Keep N.J. driver's licenses for legal residents

People wait in line at a motor vehicle office in Newark. Democrats in the state Assembly and Senate have introduced a bill that would allow unauthorized immigrants to legally drive in New Jersey.Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-Ledger

The latest incarnation of this potential change to New Jersey law puts it in the realm of public safety.

“This isn’t to excuse the fact that they’re undocumented,” said state Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex. “But they’re on the roads. They’re driving. Many uninsured,” Vitale said of the legislation he’s co-sponsoring.

Perhaps that’s comprehensible in North and Central New Jersey, but in places such as Cumberland County, we’ve seen far too many serious accidents caused by undocumented immigrants without any licenses.

The most notorious case is that of Juan Bautista, a one-time Bridgeton resident who put Franklin Township convenience store worker Christina Applegate in a long-term coma after he crashed into her car in 2003. After a seven-year manhunt, Bautista — who had been driving with no license — was arrested in his native Mexico, where he had fled to escape justice. It didn’t work. He was convicted there in 2011, and authorities added to his sentence last year.

However, the difficulty in tracking down Bautista suggests that other undocumented immigrants accused of motor-vehicle-related crimes could easily flee, especially to Mexico or Central America. And a license — excuse us, a “driving privilege card” — is an incentive to work illegally. It would also be too easy to use the identification for other improper purposes.

In 2009, then-Gov. Jon Corzine rejected the recommendation of a state blue-ribbon panel for illegal-immigrant driving privileges, citing the state’s license security efforts, and saying that it’s the federal government, not each state, that should determine how to identify people.

The federal government hasn’t been any help on the immigration issue since then, and Corzine’s view remains correct.

New Jersey recently enacted another of the 2009 panel’s findings, allowing the children of illegal immigrants to have reduced in-state college tuition. But a second-class, non-license license is still a non-starter.